Odd noises and faint lines on monitor.

[MickeyJim]

So I've just got my new system, pretty jazzed, go to play Planetside 2 and I start getting weird, faint lines kind of scrolling down my screen, almost like an old CRT monitor or an old timey TV or something. They're really faint, not that bothersome but sort of irritating. It's definately not screen tearing, it's more faint and uniform.

Accompanying that are these weird kind of buzzy noises coming from inside the tower. Again, not too loud, as daft as it sounds it almost sounds like there's a bee trapped in the tower or something (they're definately isn't, I checked).

I loaded up Witcher 2 and get the same thing. Just in the process of installing more games to test it. Skyrim, same thing.

It doesn't happen when it's at rest, just in games. I'm wondering it's something to do with the monitor, it's old-ish and VGA, which I'm told is a shaky old connection type, but that doesn't explain the noise. It does seem to be tied to the load the PC is put under, since the noise get's more noticeable in Witcher 2, then a little less for Planetside, then just a very faint intermittent buzz for Skyrim.

The computer was put together by altogether reputable people (OCUK, if you're familiar of them over here in the UK) and extensively tested for a stable overclock. I literally just set it up today, so it can't be wear and tear. Temps are around normal.

Not sure it'll help, sounds like a specific problem, but here's the specs just in case;
FX-8320
R9 280x
8gb RAM
AMD 760G mobo
Super Flower 550W PSU
Seagate Barracuda 1tb HD
Samsung 120gb Evo SSD

Thanks for any help you can give. It's not that much of gamebreaker but the lines are bugging me and I'm worried it's an indication that something is seriously wrong in there.

 

[Xivilain]

The noise could be coil whine from your graphics card, when its under load.

"Any device with heavy currents passed through coils may produce acoustic noise."

Some manufacturers have lower quality assurance, and release more "bad" parts to production in their cards. This is a common thing, and mostly just irritates the crap out of people. It shouldn't effect anything else in your setup.

However, you described some white lines on your screen, I'd try a different monitor, (And use DVI or HDMI or DP instead of VGA) to see if the issue persists. I've had to replace bad capacitors inside monitors to get rid of artifacts on screen. If the issue is still there, then I'd look into getting your graphics card replaced, as it may be the culprit. But check your monitor on another system first, and check a different monitor on your original system to eliminate any guesses.

Hope this helps

 

[MickeyJim]

The noise could be coil whine from your graphics card, when its under load.

"Any device with heavy currents passed through coils may produce acoustic noise."

Some manufacturers have lower quality assurance, and release more "bad" parts to production in their cards. This is a common thing, and mostly just irritates the crap out of people. It shouldn't effect anything else in your setup.

However, you described some white lines on your screen, I'd try a different monitor, (And use DVI or HDMI or DP instead of VGA) to see if the issue persists. I've had to replace bad capacitors inside monitors to get rid of artifacts on screen. If the issue is still there, then I'd look into getting your graphics card replaced, as it may be the culprit. But check your monitor on another system first, and check a different monitor on your original system to eliminate any guesses.

Hope this helps

Swapped monitors to a gross old thing I had lying around (1366x720, what is this, the Dark Ages?), no lines at all. So that's confirmed to be the monitor, which is a huge relief. Thanks for the tip. Time to get a DVI one I think.

As for the buzz, I think you're right, that sounds a lot like what I've got. Just played a pretty heavy session on Planetside on max settings for about three hours and nothing's on fire, so that's also a relief.

Thanks again for the help, you've been great.